Mexican Crosses: Cholula

San Gabriel de Cholula, 1668 segmented atrium cross with alternating rosettes and lozenges.

As a follow up to our earlier page on the monastery of San Gabriel in this city, we present here a selection of other carved stone crosses adorning the churches and cemeteries of Cholula.

This is the atrium cross of the church of San Miguel,
located behind San Gabriel, ornamented in a similar pattern

San Miguelito: this smaller chapel has a modern foliated gable cross with chalice and Host

Large cross in the Cholula Pantheon (cemetery) in the style of the San Gabriel cross

Two other Pantheon crosses

Below the great pyramid of Cholula: a rustic stone cross

In addition to those on inner city churches, there are several other old crosses on interest in outlying communities barrios of Cholula:

Santa Maria Magdalena Xixitla: gable cross with Passion symbols

Trinidad Xixitla: atrium cross with Passion reliefs

San Gregorio Zacapechpan: atrium cross with Passion symbols

San Luis Tehuiloyocan: atrium cross with Passion reliefs

Another in similar style,  dated 1713, is found in nearby Santiago Momoxpan

San Gregorio Atzompa, carved and painted atrium cross


text & images © Richard Perry,   photography: Niccolo Brooker & Diana Roberts

look for our forthcoming pictorial guide to Mexican Carved Stone Crosses

Mexican Crosses: The Crosses of Actopan

The second in our series of pictorial pages on the great 16th century monasteries of Mexico features the grand Augustinian priory of Actopan, in Hidalgo, with a special focus on its varied portrayals of the cross.  

   This page also serves as the inaugural post in our new series on Mexican crosses of all kinds—carved stone crosses old and new, wooden crucifixes or painted murals.  Be surprised!

 Felipe Falcón

Actopan, the atrium cross, sculpted with Passion objects and set on globe in front of church

 The Crosses of Actopan

The magnificent Augustinian priory of Actopan boasts an extraordinary wealth of early colonial art and architecture—among them grand, innovative buildings faced with spectacular murals.
   Among the less well publicized of these treasures are the various portrayals of the cross, in murals and relief sculptures in its precincts. A singular feature of these depictions, in both genres, is the presence of the arma christi or the Instruments of Christ's Passion. 

Calvary cross relief, with skull and bones, carved above the convento porteria 

Armorial cross with Passion symbols, Augustinian pierced heart and tasseled hat  (Prior's room)

Partially obliterated mural of banded tree crosses with Crown of Thorns and  arma christi

Calvary cross mural with arma christi: column; ladder, lance; sponge; crown of thorns, skull & bones, etc.

text ©2012 Richard D. Perry.  photographs by Niccolo Brooker and Felipe Falcón

for more on Actopan and other Mexican monasteries consult our guidebook: Mexico's Fortress Monasteries

look for our forthcoming pictorial guide to Mexican Carved Stone Crosses

San Gabriel de Cholula

This is the first in a series of occasional pictorial pages on the great 16th century monasteries of Mexico.  Our focus will be on special aspects of each location and features outstanding photography.
   This initial post focuses on the impressive buildings at San Gabriel de Cholula and their fine stonework as photographed by my favorite Mexican photographer Felipe Falcón.

San Gabriel de Cholula

When the Spaniards first glimpsed Cholula in 1519 they could scarcely believe their eyes, "Temples and shrines rise like lofty towers above the city" wrote an awed Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the renowned chronicler of the Conquest.
This was the great temple of Quetzalcoatl, sacred to the Aztecs and famous throughout Mesoamerica.

San Gabriel, church gable

When the dust and bloodshed of the Conquest had subsided, the Franciscans started to build the grand monastery of San Gabriel on the site of the razed temple precincts.

The formidable fortress church, arcaded chapel and convento are enclosed in a spacious atrium by battlemented walls and imposing gateways.

Sculpted atrium cross in front of the Capilla Real

The domes of the Capilla Real (Carolyn Brown)

One of the first structures to be completed here was the great open chapel of La Capilla Real, a vast building to the north of the monastery church, designed to accommodate the vast numbers of Indian converts.

Capilla Real interior

Travelers who have seen the famous mosque in Cordoba, Spain experience a sense of deja vu on entering this unique space, which is reputed to stand atop the site of the former sacred dance floor of the lost Aztec temple. 

Its nine aisles are divided into seven colonnaded bays creating a forest of columns. Each bay is now capped by its own lanterned dome.

Capilla Real, baptismal font

The majesty of the architecture is matched by the magnificence of the stone carving. The most striking artifact inside the Capilla Real is the monolithic baptismal font, carved with rosettes, acanthus leaves and the knotted cord of the Franciscan order. *

Choir window arch (detail)

In addition to the baptismal font and the atrium cross, the circular choir window of the main church is delicately sculpted with urns sprouting flowers and prehispanic song scrolls, proclaiming to Spaniard and Indian alike that, despite all the changes, the church, and indeed the entire monastery, remained a sacred place, as it had been for centuries. 

Keystone with lamb

* Look for our forthcoming blogs on the crosses and murals of Cholula

Text ©2012 Richard D. Perry    Photography © Felipe Falcón A.

for more details see our guidebook Mexico's Fortress Monasteries

Mexican Eagles 5: Coats of Arms: La Casas de Cortés

For our final post on this thread we look at some complex colonial coats of arms associated with the conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Cuilapan:  La Casa de Cortés

Hernán Cortés, the Spanish conqueror of Mexico has many monuments. As Lord of the Marquesado— the estate granted to him by the Spanish Crown—he established señorial residences across this vast tract that stretched from Mexico City to Oaxaca. 

Powerful though he was, however, Cortés was unable to extend his domain into present day city of Oaxaca, although a mansion there popularly, but mistakenly, bears his name (see below) 

The town of Cuilapan, however, located just beyond the eastern city limits near Monte Albán and famous for its rambling Dominican priory, became one of his favorite outposts. 

Sections still remain of an imposing early colonial secular building facing the main plaza there. Known locally as the Casa de Cortés, it is reliably believed to be an authentic occasional residence of the conquistador rather than a native palace or tecpan. The structure is noted for its richly sculpted detail including two heraldic plaques of great interest. 

The one shown above displays a unique variant of an aristocratic coat of arms.  In this escutcheon, the two-headed Hapsburg imperial eagle is reduced to a single quarter above the royal lion on the left.  Reliefs on the right represent Tenochtitlan, the ancient Aztec island capital, and above, three crowns, probably symbolizing the defeated Aztec tlatoani Montezuma, Cuauhtemoc and Cuitlahuac. 

The chained heads of dead captives surrounding the inner shield are thought to symbolize the vanquished native lords of the lakeside cities around Tenochtitlan.

If this relief in fact dates from the time of Cortés, it is a unique historic and artistic monument and represents one of the earliest and most detailed sculptured escutcheons from the early colonial era.

Oaxaca: La Casa de Cortés 

Erroneously named for the famous conquistador of two centuries earlier, this early 18th century urban palace in the historic center is one of the few private residences from Oaxaca’s colonial era to survive largely intact. 

This restored mansion is now the home of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MACO) but was originally built to house a newly married couple who united two prominent regional families.

Dramatically set against a plain green stone front, the decorative, triple tier facade reflects many of the stylistic traits familiar from Oaxaca’s baroque churches.

On the upper tier of the facade an elegant statue of the Archangel Michael gazes out from an ornate shell niche. Prominently emblazoned on either side and flanked by classical fluted columns are the armorial shields of the Pinelo and Lazo de la Vega families. Baroque flourishes adorn these family coats-of-arms, capped by the plumed helmets that traditionally signify nobility. 

In the Pinelo family escudo on the left, fleurs-de-lis are quartered with pineapple or pomegranate pinnacles.  The Lazo de La Vega escutcheon on the right opposes the Five Wounds, in the form of Augustinian hearts, to the chain of the aristocratic order of the Golden Fleece.

Question:  The latter escudo features X's, or heraldic saltires, on the shield like those on the Cuilapan coat of arms. I am not sure of the meaning of these in either case, and would welcome suggestions.

text © 2012 Richard D. Perry;  photographs: Richard D. Perry

For details on the colonial churches of Oaxaca consult our regional guidebook:

Mexican Eagles 4: The Eagles of Santa Monica

The 18th century Augustinian nun's church of Santa Mónica is in my view the most beautiful and, in many ways, the most influential building in Guadalajara. Its exquisitely carved twin facades are widely considered to be the precursors to, and the models for, the many wonderful Jaliscan folk baroque church fronts. 

In this post, however,  I focus on several distinctive reliefs of the Hapsburg Imperial eagle that grace the nave exterior.   All are robustly carved in a popular style firmly in the Mexican tequitqui tradition. 

The most interesting of the group is the two-headed eagle on the north portal, flanked by archaic, fluttering angels who clutch spiraling foliage. The church on the eagle's breast mirrors that customarily held up by St Augustine—one of the many Augustinian emblems emblazoned on the church front. 

Both eagles are pecking at what appear to be bunches of grapes on their wings. There is also a budding flower between them that I thought was a crown before.  Also, the flanking angels are holding spirals of foliage. So the eagles may be seen as part of a vine?

Alternatively, the grapes might be viewed as wounds—a reference to the parallel

 sacrificial myth of pelicans drawing their own blood to feed their young? 

The long headed eagle between the two doorways is also vigorously rendered. Here the Cristic monogram IHS is displayed on the shield like breast.

A third imperial eagle appears on the wall beyond the north portal.  An eroded relief of the Augustinian pierced heart  is carved on its rounded breast.

The fluttering angels reappear on the south portal, flanking the Augustinian insignia of a tasselled miter and, again, the pierced heart of the Order.

Text: ©2012 Richard D. Perry   
Photography: Richard Perry; Niccolo Brooker; Diana Roberts; Enrique López-Tamayo Biosca

For more on the colonial churches of Guadalajara consult our guidebook:

Mexican Eagles 2: Eagle Warriors

Eagle Warriors

Eagle warriors, or  cuacuautzin, along with the Jaguar warriors (ocelomeh) were the two leading military orders in Aztec society.  As special castes, these were made up of the bravest soldiers of noble birth as well as those who had taken the greatest number of prisoners in battle.  
   The "Eagle warriors were called "soldiers of the sun," for the eagle was the symbol of the sun, but their lives were one of constant battle, as increasingly the primary purpose for this continual warfare was to take prisoners to be sacrificed to their gods.

A few depictions of Eagle warriors survived the Spanish conquest:

This 16th century relief sculpture of an Aztec eagle warrior is set into the tower of the great Franciscan church of Asunción Tecamachalco, in Puebla.

The eagle wears a tlatoani (ruler) headdress, or copilli, which indicates that this place was an ancient royal seat.  A complex speech scroll issuing from the eagle's beak incorporates the Aztec atl-tlachinolli glyph (fire and water = burnt water) signifying war. 

In addition, a second speech scroll extending behind the eagle's head appears to have a flint on it, which, together with the surrounding panoply of spears and other weapons, further reinforces the warlike message of the relief.

Beneath the relief is an inscription in Spanish and Nahuatl bearing the dates 1589, 1590 and 1591— probably referring to the construction of the tower. 

A second eagle relief is mounted in the nave wall at nearby Tepeaca, another early Franciscan foundation. Posed like the Aztec eagle, with spread wings, the bird perches atop a cactus on a stylized mound or island.  

Cupped below the heraldic frame is a chain like variant of the atl-tlachinolli motif, in which the twin rivers of fire and water intertwine.

This "escudo" is one of a pair of heraldic shields adorning the facade of the Augustinian priory church of Ixmiquilpan, in the state of Hidalgo. 

Aside from the heraldic frames, their content is entirely pre hispanic, without overt Spanish or Christian references.  

The intricately carved relief portrays the classic features of the Aztec eagle—perched on a cactus sprouting from the rock above a lake. Again the eagle wears a plumed tlauhquechol or war bonnet and brandishes a lance or war banner.

Jaguar warriors, the counterparts of the Eagle warriors, crouch on either side with chimalli, or native war shields.

text and drawing © Richard D. Perry.  Photography Niccolo Brooker

for more on the early monasteries of Puebla and Tlaxcala see our guidebook  Mexico's Fortress Monasteries

Mexican Eagles 1: The Aztec Eagle

This is the first in a series of posts exploring the role of the eagle and its portrayal in Mexican art,  with a focus on sculptural reliefs in Aztec and early colonial times.

The Aztec Eagle, from the Codex Mendoza

The Aztec Eagle

In the 15th century the wandering Aztecs founded their capital city Tenochtitlan in the middle of Lake Texcoco in the Valley of Mexico.

According to their origin myth, their patron Huitzilpochtli a god of war, sun and fire, foretold that the long Aztec migration from Aztlan, their ancestral homeland in the north, would come to an end where they saw an eagle perched on a cactus, and there they would found a great city. 

The Hapsburg two headed eagle, with Crown and snake (Jalpan, Queretaro)

The Hapsburg Imperial Eagle

Following the Spanish conquest, the Aztec eagle was supplanted by the double headed Imperial Eagle of the Hapsburgs—the insignia of the ruling dynasty in Spain 

This emblem was universally emblazoned on churches and public buildings in the early colonial period in Mexico.

However, after Independence in 1821, most of these images were erased, and in many cases replaced in turn by the Aztec eagle—the symbol of modern Mexico.

The Mexican Eagle, with snake, cactus and Lake Texcoco

In following posts we will see how these sometimes conflicting and often ambiguous images were adapted in early colonial Mexico.

text © 2012 Richard D. Perry